The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for applying heat to dry wet laundry and/or to heat up laundry water for the washing of laundry, and also relates to a washing machine and/or dryer for accomplishing the method.
Typically, laundry dryers are very poorly designed with regard to their power consumption. This is true for machines which only dry laundry, so called tumblers, as well as for combined washing/drying machines. In fact, the energy consumption for drying clothes is so high that very often the users of combined washers and dryers leave out the drying phase of the cycle and, to save energy, prefer to dry their laundry in other ways, such as by hanging it out to let the air dry it.
One reason for the low efficiency as concerns power consumption of conventional methods of drying clothes results from the fact that the method employed is that, in such conventional dryers, or washers/dryers, the air is first heated up, and then the heated air is passed over the laundry to be dried.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for overcoming the aforesaid drawbacks. Specifically, it is within the contemplation of the present invention to provide an improved arrangement which is inexpensive and highly efficient.